Nougat rises to 4.9% share in March Android platform numbers

Big gains for Nougat and small drops for all other Android versions in latest figures from Google.

Google has published the latest Android platform distribution numbers, showing the share of each OS version across all devices accessing the Play Store last month. Just like the previous month, we're seeing big gains for Nougat, which goes from 2.8% to 4.9%.

The jump comes as more devices sold in the past year or so, including phones in Samsung's popular Galaxy S7 and S6 series, receive upgrades to Android 7.0.

All Android versions older than Nougat lost small amounts of market share in March, including the ever-dominant Lollipop, and Marshmallow, which trails a close second.

At the other end of the spectrum, both Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x) and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.x) dropped below a single percentage point, both coming in at a 0.9% share. (Google doesn't include versions with less than a 0.1% share.) KitKat (Android 4.4.x) continues to be oldest version with significant market share at 20%, down slightly from 20.8% in February.

Overall, Nougat still represents a small fraction of the enormous Android ecosystem, but one that's rapidly growing. Expect more big gains for Android 7.x in April on the back of the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8 launches. And look for both Gingerbread and ICS to drop off the charts entirely in the coming months.